Sometimes the best things are acquired in the most roundabout way. I mean who would think that by reading a restaurant review in a Sydney paper one winter morning that I would be led to the best lunch I have had in the Canberra region in twenty-five years?

The restaurant is called "The Lynwood Café" and is located in historic Collector now by-passed by the new dual carriage-way Sydney road between Canberra and Goulburn. Fifty minutes' drive from the Woden Valley in showery winter weather had sharpened our appetites and we were ready for a fire and food. Both were waiting for us.

The low stone building was once an early nineteenth century bakery and has been re-furbished with restraint and elegance. It stands in a yard surrounded by an attractive and newly built wall in what I imagine is local sandstone.

As a long-time resident of Canberra I had always driven through Collector on my way to Sydney and thought it a cold place huddling at the Goulburn end of mysterious Lake George with a past that had seen a bushranger or two hole up there. Yes, I knew it was old because of the gnarled orchard trees and the stone houses. "The Lynwood Café" has started with all that history and and built on it. It works. Call it imagination but the food seems to taste better for all this emphasis on locality.

Winter diners can eat in one of three rooms all well heated. I liked the one labelled "The Jam Room", lined with shelves heavy with Lynwood Produce all local from those very orchards I had seen over the years - bush apricots, medlars, Kentish cherries and damson plums. You can choose from jams, preserves or chutneys. One of our party is a marmalade fan and bought the "Three Fruit Marmalade" at $8.00 per jar.

The rooms displayed spring blossom from the same trees and jonquils from old gardens alongside wooden bowls brimming with quinces and local walnuts. Works of local artists hang on the walls and the women's rest room is the shrine of a fine small piece by Rosalie Gascoigne (or someone imitating her for the young staff did not know).

The menu dated for the day of our visit offered a choice of five dishes in each of starters, mains and desserts. I resisted the crumbed lambs brains with egg, caper and herb mayonnaise in favour of a pork terrine with Lynwood peppered apricots. The terrine reminded me of German presswurst but was more tender and flavoursome than any product sold in Australia by that name and the apricots were a special variation on the usual wine vinegar accompaniment. The soup was cream of broccoli with toasted almonds and an omelette and fried blue eye cod completed the choice of starters.

One of our party had the fried Atlantic Salmon which trembled with tenderness and moisture under its sauce of Larks Hill Champagne and prawns. My sister had the char grilled rib eye steak with fresh beans and a wine sauce that had taken three days to produce. The steak parted with the touch of a knife and was voted the best eaten for some years anywhere in Australia. Also on offer were farmhouse sausages and breast of guinea fowl, both served with Lynwood produce.

I skipped the main meals in order to sample either a dessert or the farmhouse cheddar from Queensland which was served shaved with quince marmalade and local walnuts. THe third member of our party shared with us a joy of a rice pudding with prune and brandy ice-cream that was redolent with fresh cinnamon and nutmeg.

We watched waffles pass by to the next table and marvelled at the toasted almonds swimming in Collector honey and ice-cream. The Yorkshire gingerbread with apples and caramel sauce had sold out by the time we were ready for it, but equally appropriate for winter were the pancakes with lemon curd and vanilla ice-cream and the chocolate and chestnut sponge with chocolate ice-cream.

"The Lynwood Café" is owned by the same family who runs "The Sea Cow" at 110 Boundary Street, Paddington and "The Jersey Cow" at 152 Jersey Road, Woollahra in Sydney, which changes its three course menu every night and uses organic produce from the Collector area.

The information on promotional cards tell us that Lynwood Produce is supplied to metropolitan Sydney through Lynwood Stores at 123 Norton Street, Leichhardt, where a range of prepared meals can be bought to take home, heat and serve. These include single serves of soups and mains, or side dishes and double serves of pasta sauces and desserts. Some that caught my eye from their July Winter 2000 menu are Scotch lamb and barley broth, slow cooked veal shanks with kipfler potatoes and root vegetables, oxtail ragout and winter vegetable sauce for pasta, fennel confit as a side dish and steamed rhubarb pudding. Prices start at $4.50 for soup and the highest price was $12.50 for a shoulder of lamb dish, chicken or duck or corned silverside.

When we drove back through North Canberra we saw snow lying on the ground but we did not feel we had missed out on anything at all at Collector. "Lynwood Cafe" celebrates place in ways and levels that many others could emulate. And I am more than happy to settle for the gastronomic as were the fifty or so others whose cars filled the carpark on that Wednesday.

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